The Painter, the Sculptor, and the Music Maker
by Be one with Mother Russia
Summary: Another gunshot sounded, this one much closer. Haru felt nothing at first, as her legs buckled beneath her, and Shibi ran out the door.
1. Heartbreak Warfare

**Disclaimer for WHOLE story.~ Don't own.**

**For YarningChick. Thanks for all the hours of entertainment. ^.^ Keep up the awesome work, kay?**

Haru glanced at the piece of paper in her hand, then at the street sign and back. She looked briefly at her watched. 4:10. No sign of Machida. Was he just playing with her? Her heart tightened in her chest. Twenty minutes later, she had convinced herself he had forgotten, or something had come up that was more important. Anything to stop the burning ache of her heart being cut in two with a dull spoon.

She would ask Shibi later. Her stepfather, after all, was best friends with Machida's father. She stood, and began the long walk home.

Five o'clock found her standing outside of her modest home, eyes filled with tears. Inside, she could hear her mother and stepfather yelling again.

A crash, like shattering glass, told her someone threw the old red and yellow vase on the in table in the living room. That was okay. She hadn't really liked that vase since throwing up in it when she was six.

A scream, shrill and full of not anger, but fear, echoed around the silent block. It was followed closely with a sharp bang like the shot of a gun. Haru panicked.

She wretched the door open, and dashed into her living room. What she found, what she saw, would haunt her nightmares for years. Somehow though, she doubted she'd make it that far.

Her stepfather stood over the bleeding form of her downed mother. The red haired woman turned slightly and locked eyes with her daughter. "Run..." She whispered. That small movement caught her husbands' eyes, and he turned to Haru. A lecherous grin made its way over his face, and he began slowly approaching the girl. She opened her mouth and screamed, loud, long, and hard. She screamed with all the power of the lungs her mother possessed, and then found the strength to scream louder.

A police siren sounded in the distance. Shibi snarled his rage and cursed the girl.

Another gunshot sounded, this one much closer. Haru felt nothing at first, as her legs buckled beneath her, and Shibi ran out the door.

Excruciating, horrific pain laced its way up her side. Her heart beat loudly in her ears.

Bu-bum... Bu-bum... bu-bum... bu-bum... bu-bum...

In the distance, nearer than before, a siren sounded, drawing closer with each second. Haru stared at the dead, terrified eyes of her mother, hypnotized by the glorious brown that mirrored her own.

Bu-bum.

She knew no more.


	2. Hello Buta san

**::The Painter, the Sculptor, and the Music Maker.::**

**:Chapter 2. Hello Buta-san.:**

Haru woke, with a silent groan, to quiet, incomprehensible whispers. A shadow moved in front of the sunlight that was warming her face.

"Is she awake?" The voice was rough, gravelly, and yet quiet, and sweet. It held just enough concern to make Haru want to smile.

At least _someone_ cared about her. Even if she didn't recognize it. A large, warm hand gripped her own in a slightly sweaty squeeze. "No, I'm afraid you're daughter won't awake for a while, Mr. Moon. Would you like to go to the cafeteria and eat?" This voice Haru didn't know either. But it held the professionary passion of a doctor.

She tensed lightly, not enough to be noticed, and began to pray to anyone that might be listening that this stranger didn't leave her with these people.

She hated doctors. With a _passion_. She felt, more than saw, the owner of the hand gripping her own shake his head. "What if she wakes up while I'm gone? I need to be here to explain everything!"

The doctor hastily tried to reassure the man that, yes, their staff could do that, and no, she shouldn't awake for at least another day. Finally, the doctor pleaded, "Mr. Moon! You've been here for almost a week! You haven't bathed, you've barely slept, and you need to eat!" The giant firmly shook his head again.

"I left her alone once, and now I'm paying for it. When she wakes up, and knows the situation, _then _I will gladly go shower and eat. But until then, I am NOT MOVING FROM THIS CHAIR." The voice did not raise from the start of the conversation to the end, but the tone clearly stated that the man better get out of his presence. Immediately.

And the doctor did, with a hasty, weak excuse about needing to check another patient, and bowed his way out the door.

Haru couldn't hold it in any longer. She gave a slight giggle, and again, felt the giant make move.

His head turned to fast she could have sworn she heard a crack.

"Haru! Haru, darling! You're awake!" She opened her large, caramel brown eyes, and stared, straight into the face of a giant man. His hairs, and eyes, were as brown as her own. His skin a slight tan and his girth rather impressive, but this wasn't what she noticed first. No, it was his height.

He could have easily towered two heads over every person she knew! She opened her mouth to speak, but no words came out.

Pressing a hand to her throat, she found bandages. Her expression began to show fear. The man swiftly gripped her shoulders.

"Haru? Haru! Listen to me, okay? I'll explain everything."

Hesitantly, she nodded.

The giant sighed, and resumed his grip on her tiny hand, which became lost in the palm of his own.

"My name, is Renaldo Moon." She quirked an eyebrow at him. He grimaced. "I know. Doesn't fit. My friends call me Muta." She grinned. '_More like Buta...'_ she thought, laughing to herself.

"But, you, Haru, can call me 'dad'." Her mind stopped functioning for a minute. She blinked at him in shock.

"Yeah... see, Naoko and I were in love, a long time ago..." His eyes became distant. "She was the apple of my eye, and the most beautiful woman I've ever seen.

We were, at one point, so in love we thought to get married. But the night before our wedding, we got in a fight. A huge one. She was pregnant, but we'd only been together three months. Wait-!" Haru had tried to yank her hand out of his grasp.

"We didn't mean it. We were just angry, and tense about the wedding, and the stress got to us. See, she found out she was pregnant, and about three months along. And there was a chance I wasn't the father. Her ex-boyfriend, a disgusting man named Shibi, had been beating her, so she dumped him, and started dating me.

But, I didn't know this. And actually, I didn't find out until after you were born. Instead of marrying me, she married him. Shibi, and left me. I was heartbroken. I mean, sure, you might not have been mine, but I still would have raised you like it!"

Haru listened with rapt attention, as her true father told her how he had taken a plane to England, and met an old baron. The man, fond of sticking his nose into other peoples' business, took the man in, and coaxed his story out. After finding out about it, he offered to help find out.

When the baron, a man named Edward, told him about the beatings, Muta had been ready to go home, apologize, and beg his love for her forgiveness. Then Edward told him of the marriage.

"It broke my heart, when he said she was already out of my reach. It was like I was losing her, again. But this time, I wouldn't get her back. He offered to let me stay at their home, in the English countryside, on the condition that I help raise his son to be a better man. At first, I didn't think anything of it. I mean, Edward was nice enough, and he seemed healthy. So I agreed, on a condition of my own. When you turned 18, he had to let me go see you. He agreed of course, and I began to live there, working first as a chef, then as a painter, when he discovered my hidden desire. His cousin, a man of about my age, lived there with us, and the baron's kid. Then, when Baron, Edwards' son, was about five, Eddy died. And me, and Toto, the cousin, were left to take care of the boy by ourselves. When I saw you're mom's picture on the news, I told Baron I needed to come get you. He told me he was going to enjoy the quiet, and that I needed to hurry back, or Toto would get bored, and sent me on my way."

Muta's head drooped at the end of his story.

"I would have traded anything in the world, to have been here to raise you, Haru." She pressed her fingers under his chin, and lifted his head. His eyes were filled with tears. She smiled at him, and hugged him. 'Thank you.' she mouthed. His smile could have lit Tokyo.

He told her some more about what happened, and about her mother. She cried, when she discovered the woman's death, and so did her father. When he told her they were going back to England when she was released, she was ecstatic. Nothing really kept her here. She didn't have any friends, and with her mother... gone... she could start over, in a place where she could be herself, and not worry about Shibi.

She fully agreed to go with him, and he called for the doctors.

**...**

**Thank you for all the reviews, favorites, and/or story subscriptions! Thanks for reading! I have a few questions to answer though,**

**1- Yes, I killed Naoko. Sorry. But I needed her out of the way.**

**2- This IS a BaronXHaru story!**

**3- Shibi will get what's coming to him!**

**4- A few asked about my updating style. I usually update as soon as I finish a chapter, but I'm trying to curb the habit, because I don't reread it. So I'm shooting for an update every Friday-Saturday, with the occasional update at another day if I have a ton of free time.**

**5- I am aware that this sounds quite like YarningChicks' current, 'All I have Needed', trust me, I KNOW. O.O I have been informed several times, but it WON'T be, actually, here's where it ends. Completely. **


	3. The Manor

**::The Painter, the Sculptor, and the Music Maker.::**

**:Chapter 3 The Manor and the Man.:**

Haru stared out the window of the silver taxi. Lush green grass grew in the space between the road and the trees. Birds called to one another in loud, shrill voices, gossiping among themselves. A deer and her fawn grazed just beyond the tree line, looking up only to watch the car speed by.

Haru gave a silent sigh of contentment. She was going to love it here.

Muta nudged her. "Hey, honey. We're about a mile from the Manor." She turned and smiled at him, her eyes lighting up.

He grinned. "Yeah, I love the countryside too. My studio's out here actually." Haru gave him a pleading look. Muta's grin got bigger. "I'll show it to you after you meet everybody." She clapped her hands happily.

The car stopped, and they both exited. Haru went to get her things, but her father beat her to it. Father. He heart still leapt at the word.

Her mother had told her, when she was a little girl, that Shibi might not be her real dad, so she'd never called him it. But... With Muta, it just felt right. She smiled at him, and he smiled back. His eyes got a little cloudy. "Oh, Haru. I wish I could hear you talk..." She smiled sadly, softly, back at him. She nodded, as if to say 'Me too.'

The double doors of the three story light yellow building were flung open. A man, with long wild black hair stood there. His golden brown eyes widened at the sight of Muta.

He turned his head back to the interior of the building. "Baron! Fatso's home! And he brought a girl with him!"

"Don't call me fatso, you birdbrain!"

"Is that the best you can come up with?" The jumped at each other, Muta setting Haru's bags down first. Both began yelling childish insults at one another as Haru just watched, afraid at first, until she realized they weren't actually trying to hurt one another.

"Get over here and fight like a man, you chicken!"

"What's wrong lardy? Can't climb a tree?"

"HEY! I am NOT lardy, you birdbrain!"

"You already called me a birdbrain you idiot!"

Someone cleared their throat, and Haru jumped. A man, his tawny golden curls gleaming in the mid afternoon sun, smiled at her. He was standing just beside her. How did she not see him?

She found herself looking up into warm minty green eyes. He flashed a smile at her. "Ignore them. They do this a lot." Contrary to his words, his stunning eyes followed their movements. The man was a good head taller than her, wearing a light grey suit with a blue bowtie and a red vest over a white shirt. A top hat rested firmly on his head, and he sipped, almost absently, from his teacup.

"Stop being such a coward, birdbrain, I'm only going to rip you're hair out!"

"Stop trying, fatman, I'm only going to throw my shoe at you."

Said shoe came flying out of the tree, missing Muta by inches. "HEY! Get down here, you overgrown chicken!" Haru couldn't help it.

She laughed. All movement stopped. Three pairs of eyes stared at the girl, now laughing her head off, sitting on the ground. Muta chuckled.

"I could get used to that." He told her warmly, as she brushed tears of mirth off her face. The golden-man offered her a hand up, grinning at her. She blushed, and took the offered appendage.

Muta approached the two.

"It looks like introductions are in order." The gold man said. He was still holding her hand. She blushed darker, and cleared her throat. He tilted his head curiously, and she tugged at her hand.

Amazingly, the man blushed too, but dropped her hand. She smiled.

The man cleared his throat. "I, am Baron Hubert von Gikkingen, II."

Inspite of her best attempts, a snicker escaped Haru's mouth. The man grinned. "Please, call me Baron." He bowed politely. She giggled, and curtseyed back. Baron held out his hand.

She set her own in it, but instead of shaking it, he brought it to his lips, and gave it a small, simply kiss. The action was nothing more than the butterfly brushing of skin to skin, but Haru flushed a deep, dull crimson. Baron dropped her hand, and the darker man stepped forward.

"Hello! My name is Toto; you're lard tub of a dad's best friend!" She giggled, and curtseyed again, to his slightly clumsy bow.

She looked back at her dad and grinned.

She was going to love it here.


	4. Rain Rain

**Note from Author: Due to the amount of people stating that my story seems familiar to YarningChick's current, and though it pains me to say, I have decided to forgo reading it until my own is finished. ^.^ That way, I don't do it on purpose, and if it seems similar, its a complete accident. **

**Written: 2/18/11**

**::The Painter, the Sculptor, and the Music Maker.::**

**:Chapter 4 The Room.:**

Toto and Muta helped settle Haru into a room of her own, explaining that because Muta had rushed to get to her in Japan, they hadn't been able to paint it, and the bed was only half done.

"Hey, Chicky?" Haru glanced at Muta questioningly.

"Do you have a picture of you and you're mom?" She blinked, as if asking why. He seemed to grow nervous. "It-uh... Its a surprise, alright? Baron'd kill me for ruining it."

She grinned at him, and stood from her bed. A small photo album was found among her things, and a picture of her and her mother was retrieved.

It was an old one, from back when she was just a girl, before Shibi had made her cut her hair. Her mother was sitting behind her, her arms wrapped around her slim shoulders. Both were smiling, Haru's long chocolate locks falling in curls to her waist.

She paused for a minute to smile at the memory it brought, of a picnic when Shibi had been gone on a business trip. It had just been the two of them, laughing in the sun...

A tear made its way down her cheek, but she rubbed it away quickly, and turned the picture over to her father. He looked at it too, with a soft smile, then bid her good bye, and left. Haru went back to her poetry.

The tearoom in the Manor was quiet. Haru sat in a chair close to the window, and stared out the glass, into the rain. It dripped down the window glass in little rivers, blurring the landscape beyond.

Haru watched those rivers, entranced. A small, nostalgic smile played across her face.

"Am I interrupting something?" She glanced up with a start. Baron stood in the doorway, a tea tray in his hands. She shook her head, and gestured to the chair across from her. He grinned as he took a seat.

"Would you care for tea?" He asked. She grinned and nodded. "Would that be milk, or lemon?" She mouthed 'milk' and took the cup gently.

The sweet liquid warmed her cold body, and she gave a content sigh. The two sat in companionable silence for many minutes, the room silence, but for the rain.

"It always rains here, it seems." Baron murmured. Haru sat, listening to the sound of his voice. "When it rains, I like to sit in here, and just watch the sky melt. It's beautiful... in a morbid sort of way." She smiled softly and hummed her agreement.

"I-" She glanced at Baron, who seemed to be thinking deeply about his question.

"May I ask a... slightly personal question?" She nodded for him to continue.

"You're voice... What-Why can you no longer speak? I asked Muta, but he said it was you're decision." She smiled softly, and turned a page in her notebook, scribbling quickly, then tearing the page out and handing it over.

_"It's not permanent. I screamed so loud, and for a long time, and ended up trashing my throat."_

He read the small explanation over and murmured softly, "Some tea might help. A little hyssop or honey?" She smiled, and wrote on the little piece of paper _"Maybe some peppermint?"_

Baron grinned and nodded. "I'll start on this tomorrow. But for now, its late. Time for bed." She glanced out the window again, shocked to see black sky, instead of grey clouds. Her eyes widened in shock. When had it gotten so late?

She smiled at the man, and left quietly. Baron watched her retreating form until she turned a corner, then resumed staring out the window at the rain filled night sky. "'Hearts are not had as a gift, but hearts are earned.'" He mused quietly. His thoughts turned to a blonde woman he had once loved. A woman who had betrayed him.

"Maybe I wished our love apart..." This was quickly followed by, "I thought I promised to forget you? But I guess I forgot to."

There was a snicker. Toto poked his head around the doorframe. "So... still hung up over Louise?" As soon as the word left his mouth, Toto regretted it. Baron seemed to wilt, and fall apart.

"I'll never let her go. Buts... 'Its better to have loved and lost, then to have never lost at all..."

**...**

**So... I apologize for the wait, but I've had a lot going on, and haven't been able to upload this. Sorry! Updated: 3/6/11**


	5. What stalks me in my sleep?

**I'm sorry I haven't update guys. v.v you have every right to be thoroughly annoyed with me. But I DO have a good excuse! I'm an emotion writer. Which means, more, that I have to **_**feel**_** what I write, or I just **_**can't.**_** (What this says, however, for my chaotic emotional state, you may take as you will.)You aren't the only ones annoyed with me though… . My English teachers weren't too happy either. But hey! I passed, and summer is here. Time to get crack-a-lackin'! Well… writing, anyways.**

…**..**

_Bu-bum..bu-bum..bu-bum.._

_Haru was running. Her breath came in quick panting rasps, and her lungs burned with effort, like the muscles of her legs. Tears brimmed on the surface of her eyes, but didn't pass. She was too scared to cry, even for her mother. _

_**No.**__ Her mind whispered to her. __**It didn't happen like this.**__ She hadn't even had time to run. He had shot, and she had gone down. She was too late to save her mother. This wasn't how it happened._

_But he followed her all the same. It could have been real. This could have been what happened. Those foot steps, echoing off the walls of that dingy alleyway could be the reality._

_But it wasn't. What happened had passed. And Haru couldn't change that. As much as I pained her._

_Even so, her unprotected mind was playing before her a scene in the once peaceful dreams that now haunted her of the way things could have been. _

_And so she continued to run in the seemingly never ending alleys. Her breath still came is short, quick gasps. Her eyes blurred, not with tears, but exhaustion. She ran, and ran, and ran. On and on, but those steps never seemed to end, the came, on and on. Just like the heartbeat that pounded its rhythm in her veins continued to go, on and on. _

_Bu-bum. Bu-bum. Bu-bum. She turned the corner and slammed, face first, into a wall. A dead end. The walls were too high to scale, and no side passage lead away from her on coming doom. And on-coming it was. On and on. The sound of expensive Italian leather heels clicking on the ground. On and on. She put her back against the wall._

_For her mother. For her future. For herself. She would go down swinging. She took a deep calming breath, and the face of her stalker came around the corner. But instead of her step-father, and prissy, stick-thin man who existed in the real world, a monster showed its face. _

_It was him, no doubt, that _man._ But he was covered, head to toe, in blood, and carried a bleeding corpse over his shoulder, like a sack of potatoes. He dropped the heavy burden, and revealed the face of her mother. The tears that couldn't escape before now drifted down her cheeks._

_The Man-Monster reached into her mothers chest, through the hole formed by not a bullet, as it had been that day, but a gapping maw, and pulled out her mothers' heart._

_It beat, slowly, gently almost. The Man-Monster looked at her. Looked her straight in the eye. And squeezed. The soft, supple muscle in his hand crumbled. Her mother, bleeding on the ground, gave a sort of gasp, a half formed cry of pain that withered away into nothing. That sound, more than anything, broke Haru's strength._

_She opened her mouth, and screamed. _

_The man tossed the crushed heart aside, and began his slow, leisurely stalking pace towards her again._

_The smile on his blood splattered face was manic, and a giggle, half just a breathy sigh, came from his lungs to bubble to the surface._

_On and on he came. Tip-tap. Tip. Tap._

_Bu-bum. Bu-bum. Bu-bum._

…_._

**So? How was it? Reviews are loved, and appreciated, even if I don't deserve them for leaving you hanging. :p**


	6. When Nightmares End

**Oh, how I do love to receive reviews. ^.^ Ms. Catsafari, yes, those were typos. ^.^; heheh… sorry. :p**

**On to Business~! (and yes. I do be crack-a-lackin' XD) (This is a just in case Disclaimer. Do not own. v.v)**

…

Haru awoke with a scream that forced its way past her scarred throat. From somewhere in the darkness, she heard a thump, and the sound of voices. The blackness suffocated her, terrifyingly close. Anything could hide in the dark. She screamed again, and, like the foot steps in her nightmares, it went on and on. Her door slammed open, and light filled the room.

Her father ran in, panicking, Toto and Baron following. Tears flowed like a river down Haru's cheeks, and her head was pounding. When her father hugged her, she wrapped her arms around him and squeezed, just as tightly.

"Chicky? Chicky, what happened? What's wrong?" She sobbed harder, hating herself for it. She _hated_ crybabies. She hated feeling so weak, so helpless. She sobbed again, more tears falling from her chocolate eyes as she remembered the sight of her mother, laying so cold and helpless, even more so than Haru herself, on the ground.

"Da-dad…" She sobbed, her torn throat aching with the effort of speech. "I miss her. So much!" The scratching of her throat, and the tremble her voice held, almost disguised the beautifully sweet alto her voice usually held. Almost.

And then, Muta was crying too. His baby, his beautiful, sweet baby girl, was speaking. Behind them, Baron gently gripped Toto's arm, and drew him from the room, shutting the door softly in their wake.

….

**Okay. Short chapter-DON'T SHOOT! I just figured you might want to know what happened after her nightmare.**


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